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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

It’s good being a rap fan in Australia. This country produces enough rap to keep even the most musically-reliant lads and ladies busy, and I’m talking the ones with hair like Wolverine from wearing their headphones too long. New albums appear on shelves almost every Friday. Not to mention tours. On this very night Melbourne heads have had to decide between TZU at the Hi-Fi and Briggs/Vents at the Laundry (while I’m stuck at home with a neck injury). Spoilt for choice.

So with all this good stuff coming from my homeland, I’ve been known to miss new international music releases. And one such act I’ve heavily slept on is Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. I heard my first Macklemore song on Triplej recently and I scrambled for my phone so I could Shazam it. That song was ‘Thrift Shop’.

The beat, the lyrics, the chorus, the video, everything was dope. Summer jam material for sure. And bonus points for including a kneeboard. After a bit of research I discovered Macklemore and his collaborative partner (producer/photographer/videographer) Ryan Lewis have been around for a solid decade, dropping independent EP’s, a mixtape and an album out of Seattle. But their first major success was their second album ‘The Heist’ from which ‘Thrift Shop’ was the fifth single.

So I really liked that one song. But you can’t judge an artist on a single song. The real test comes from listening more. So I clicked a related video at random and ended up with this: